Tim Cook confirms that Apple has been working on generative AI for years

Apple AI research is underway

Apple spent $22.61 billion on research and development through 2023, and CEO Tim Cook confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that part of that expenditure is because the company is working on generative AI.

Many pundits have said Apple is behind in AI, specifically because they do not have a chatbot or answer to tools like Google Bard. However, it seems Apple AI has been being developed for years within the company.

According to a report from Reuters, Apple's growing spend in research and development can be tied to developing AI technology. The publication received a statement from Apple CEO Tim Cook on the matter.

"We've been doing research across a wide range of AI technologies, including generative AI, for years. We're going to continue investing and innovating and responsibly advancing our products with these technologies to help enrich people's lives," Cook said. "Obviously, we're investing a lot, and it is showing up in the R&D spending that you're looking at."

Apple spent $22.61 billion across the fiscal year 2023 on R&D so far, which is reportedly about $3.12 billion higher than this point in the previous year.

Apple is rumored to be working on a ChatGPT-like product internally, though it may never see the light of day. Mark Gurman suggests some kind of Apple AI app could arrive in 2024, though Ming-Chi Kuo believes Apple is further behind than that.

Apple R&D spending over time

Despite these claims and rumors, Apple has already pushed out products running on advanced machine learning models like the iPhone's camera, Siri, and more. An update in iOS 17 brings a transformer language model to the autocorrect system, which is the same base technology used in AI chatbots.

While Apple may not announce a SiriGPT anytime soon, if ever, expect more advancements from the company in the area across its platforms. Many expect the developer tool Xcode could be Apple's next target for adding an AI tool.

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54 Comments

twolf2919

said about 8 months ago

Apple has been bringing out some amazing AI-based solutions in the last couple years, including object recognition in the Photo app. But Siri advances continue to be pathetic. If Siri is an example of Apple's AI prowess, it's definitely behind on the AI curve. I'm a big Apple fan - have all their devices - and was very enthusiastic when Siri first came out. But over the years, Siri has moved inches, while competitors have moved miles - I can't believe a company that spends $22b on R&D can't make its voice assistant more useful in people's day-to-day lives. So disappointing.

chasm

said about 8 months ago

twolf2919 said:

I'm a big Apple fan - have all their devices - and was very enthusiastic when Siri first came out. But over the years, Siri has moved inches, while competitors have moved miles - I can't believe a company that spends $22b on R&D can't make its voice assistant more useful in people's day-to-day lives. So disappointing.

Siri will NEVER EVER be as “smart” as other voice assistants, so you’d better get over this right now. The reason? Because Siri doesn’t heavily rely on the collected data about you that encompasses more than even your parents know about you.

Siri continues to work very well for me, because I know what it can do and I don’t have much need outside of it helping me organise my day/life. I am fully aware that if you ask it some random question, probably phrased poorly, it will punt to web results. This is because it doesn’t have access to everything you have ever searched for or asked about ever in your life to help piece together what you actually want.

Maybe my needs are unusually simple, but I appreciate that Siri isn’t spying on me to get “smarter,” because it currently does 95+ percent of what I want it to do. I think the main area where Siri actually needs work is on accent recognition, and I could certainly see where Siri may in the future ask you to train it to your voice with more phrases than it does now.

It is much harder to develop a system that uses “AI” (in quotes on purpose) without scraping and selling all your personal data, which is why progress on Siri has been very slow (though it has in fact improved a great deal in recent years, at least in my use of it) compared to the companies that raid your brain for your every thought. But this is like praising the child who answers the algebra question by looking over another student’s shoulder, and failing the child who did all the work themselves because it took too long IMO.

lolliver

said about 8 months ago

chasm said:

twolf2919 said:

I'm a big Apple fan - have all their devices - and was very enthusiastic when Siri first came out. But over the years, Siri has moved inches, while competitors have moved miles - I can't believe a company that spends $22b on R&D can't make its voice assistant more useful in people's day-to-day lives. So disappointing.

Siri will NEVER EVER be as “smart” as other voice assistants, so you’d better get over this right now. The reason? Because Siri doesn’t heavily rely on the collected data about you that encompasses more than even your parents know about you.
But this is like praising the child who answers the algebra question by looking over another student’s shoulder, and failing the child who did all the work themselves because it took too long IMO.

Exactly this! Siri does what it is meant to do and does it pretty well, without spying on us. Understanding accents does need some improvement and I’m sure there are other areas it could and will improve.

After spending a week at a friends house that had several Alexa devices though I am not sold on the idea that Alexa is good at answering broader knowledge questions. While it will answer questions rather than stating “here’s something I found on the web”. The answers were not always accurate and way too often it wasn’t even specific to the question asked. Alexa would regularly misunderstand the question but still give an answer anyway. And often that answer was inaccurate for the question it thought was asked.

My friend would ask Alexa a question, tell her to stop part way through as it got the question wrong and then they may have to repeat this process several times before finally getting Alexa to correctly understand the question (but not always get the answer correct).

I started pulling out my phone and searching the web every time my friend started speaking to Alexa and was usually able to get the answer much sooner and from more trustworthy sources.

GerfnitAuthor

said about 8 months ago

My primary problem with Siri is it doesn't remember context. So if I ask about where someone lives or the address of a company and it gives me the answer, I can't request, "Take me there" because it doesn't know what "there" means. I'm afraid I've gotten spoiled by GPTchat engines with which I can make backward references.

coolfactor

said about 8 months ago

GerfnitAuthor said:

My primary problem with Siri is it doesn't remember context. So if I ask about where someone lives or the address of a company and it gives me the answer, I can't request, "Take me there" because it doesn't know what "there" means. I'm afraid I've gotten spoiled by GPTchat engines with which I can make backward references.

I believe the next version of Siri — coming with iOS 17 — can chain queries together. Combined with saying just "Siri", instead of "Hey Siri", the experience of interacting with the assistant should be much more natural and enjoyable.

Has this improved Siri been available in the iOS 17 betas, or do the betas still use the same Siri as the rest of us?